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Controlling Microbes: Not Too Hot to Handle |
Chapter: 9
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Winners and Losers Scientists suspected that yaws and syphilis were related—the agents, symptoms, and treatments were extremely similar. But they had no idea how close the relationship was until they tried to eliminate one of them.
The elimination effort began in the early 1950s when the World Health Organization mounted a campaign against yaws. Doctors gave massive doses of penicillin to patients and administered preventive doses to their contacts. The results were spectacular—in Brazil, the incidence of yaws dropped from 16,000 cases in 1965 to 188 cases in 1975. Impressive results were also obtained from other regions of the world.
But now a new problem emerged—syphilis. There had been little syphilis in Chad, New Guinea, and Thailand, but suddenly an unusual number of cases were reported in all three countries. In Columbia, there had been 4 cases of syphilis for every case of yaws, but by the mid-1970s, there were 1000 syphilis patents for every yaws patient.
What had happened was depressing. People with yaws were immune to syphilis because antibodies against the yaws organism also protected them against syphilis. Now there was no more yaws, and no more yaws antibodies. The syphilis organism had a clear path to causing infection. And it was doing so with a vengeance. Success had turned to despair.
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